Another Form of Relief

#9
Hello Saferide
‘The Quiz’

Website
Myspace

I only discovered Hello Saferide at the end of the year so I haven’t had the chance to write a full post yet, but very few artists have grabbed my attention to the same degree in the past year. Hello Saferide is the solo project of Annika Norlin, a singer songwriter from Sweden. What appeals to me most is that each song has a ton of personality shining through. Norlin isn’t afraid to project herself entirely into her songs, leaving each one with a kind of brutal honesty. The darkness of this is countered by a ton of little knowing references and quirks that just make the whole thing seem so real. At the forefront of this is ‘The Quiz’, the first song from her recent ‘Would You Let Me Play This EP Ten Times A Day?’ EP. She’s found a guy that she gets on well with and likes (even if he has a bit too much scifi in his shelf of DVDs). She’s vulnerable though so she puts together a quiz for him, with questions that range from the mundane (”Do you talk in the middle of Seinfeld?”) to the insecure (”Do you still keep pictures of old girlfriends? / Are they prettier than me?”) to the all important (”If I’d fall / Would you pick me up?”). Kind of a far less annoying version of Alanis’ ‘21 Things I Want In A Lover’.

#8
Art Brut
‘Nag Nag Nag Nag’

Website
Myspace

There isn’t really anything new here to the Art Brut formula, but surely that’s half the point? I had minor fears about new material not being a patch on the first album because the novelty would wear off, but despite it’s similarities, ‘Nag Nag Nag Nag’ works just as well for me as the old stuff. The whole thing can be seen as the story of ‘My Little Brother’ after the guy grows up, although I have no idea if that was intentional. Anyway, the Art Brut style remains the same as it was before: driving guitars, random bursts of energy and a witty song about a music dork delivered in Eddie Argos’ usual half-talking, half-shouting, half-singing (yes, I’m aware that’s three halves) style.

#7
4 or 5 Magicians
‘Forever On The Edge’

Website
Myspace

“4 or 5 Magicians are a four piece, led by Dan Ormsby, who did pretty much everything on their recorded songs, and takes charge of vocals and guitar duty when the band play live. The most obvious thing in Ormsby is that he has based his style on an influence not often seen in British bands: Stephen Malkmus. ‘Forever On The Edge’ has “slacker anthem” written all over it. A brash, honest song about wasting one’s life and almost depending on becoming famous to be successful (”I’m wasting my time in this band / Pinning all my hopes on getting signed / Well it could happen / Some idiot might sign us”). It’s this kind of witty, self-aware writing that first drew me to the band, and that they have the sound to back it up is even better.” - originally posted July 18.

#6
Belle & Sebastian
‘Funny Little Frog’

Website
Myspace

By far the best song on ‘The Life Pursuit’ and one of the finest that Belle & Sebastian have put out in years. The usual B&S staples are here, as well as a couple of new things like a piano, which they really don’t utilise anywhere near enough. Murdoch really throws himself into the vocals too, giving one of his strongest performances since ‘Your Cover’s Blown’. It’s either the official theme song for stalking or a love letter to the Virgin Mary depending on how you listen, bringing just over three minutes of perfection.

#5
Voxtrot
‘The Start of Something’

Website
Myspace

I know this technically was released in 2005, but the ‘Raised By Wolves’ EP it’s taken from didn’t get released in the UK until 2006, so I’m going to go with that excuse. Anyway, if you’ve read more than a handful of music blog in your lifetime you’re probably aware of who they are and who they sound like. This one sounds rather like The Smiths, and it’s incredibly good, particularly given that I don’t like The Smiths very much. I’m not entirely sure what it all means, as it seems to change focus an awful lot, but it’s full of wonderful imagery that’s delivered beautifully. If a full album next year doesn’t make them explode into the limelight Death Cab style, I’ll be very surprised.

#4
Kate Nash
‘The Nicest Thing’

Website
Myspace

“‘The Nicest Thing’ is up there with the best new songs that I have heard this year. It’s her most stripped down effort, just a sparse acoustic guitar and her voice, which helps an awful lot. This allows her voice, which manages to be both mournful and grounded at the same time, to become the centrepiece of the song. There is also a wonderful knack for random conversational lyrics here (”I wish that you needed me / I wish that you knew when I said two sugars, actually I meant three”). Granted the production is pretty awful here, with the vocals becoming distorted in the louder parts, but even through that the strength of this song shines through. If it were to be cleaned up a little in a studio, it could be amazing.” - originally posted June 15.

#3
The Young Republic
‘Girl From The Northern States’

Website
Myspace

The Young Republic are an eight piece (I’m sure there used to be nine though) indie folk pop band from Boston. If you’ve ever been through this blog before, you will have read me rambling about them on a fairly regular basis, so I’ll spare you here. Despite finding it very early on in the year, ‘Girl From The Northern States’ is still one of my most regularly played songs. It’s a gentle, melancholy tale of lost love that sounds more cheerful than it really has any right to. Combine this with a delightful orchestral background and you’ve got what is, for me, an almost perfect pop song.

#2
The Light Footwork
‘The Art of Everyday Communication Part 1′

Website
Myspace

The Light Footwork were the perfect example of why I started this blog in the first place. Pushing a band as good them onto unsuspecting readers is what makes this whole thing so worthwhile. A lot of songs come and go, but there are some that grab you immediately and never let go. ‘The Art of Everyday Communication Part 1′ is one of those. It starts off interestingly enough and then jumps up a gear a little way in, morphing into an entirely different song. Constantly time shifting and styles and pitch perfect male-female vocals make for an always surprising but constantly enjoyable listen.

#1
Los Campesinos!
‘You! Me! Dancing!’

Website
Myspace

“Los Campesinos! are a seven-piece from Cardiff who have seemingly already mastered how to make the perfect pop song. Best of all, they manage to bring a glockenspiel to the proceedings. Standout song ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ is just sheer joy from start to finish, it’s six and a half minute runtime actually feeling like half that. Jangly guitars combined with harmonising combined with witty, gleeful lyrics, and you’ve got a winning combination.” - originally posted July 4.

I wrote that six months ago and I’ve only grown to love this band even more in the time since. During which I’ve posted more songs from them, including fun things like a Pavement cover and other songs have turned up on the net. I saw them live back in September and will be doing so again in March. When I (and a number of other blogs) first wrote about them, they had around 600 friends on Myspace. They now have over 3000. At that time, they had no label and just a four track demo. They are now signed to Wichita and will be releasing their debut double a-side single in the new year. It cost me £3 to see them last time. It’s going to cost £6.50 this time. What I’m getting at here is that Los Campesinos! have been by far the biggest success story of 2006. Few bands arrive so fully formed and garner so much attention so quickly. I can think of nowhere more deserving though. 2007 should be a hell of a year for them, and us.

—

Well that’s my favourite nine songs of the year. It turned into a little bit of a slog toward the end, but I’m pleased with how it all turned out in the end. This brings to an end any kind of organised posting structure until this kind of time last year. This will probably be the last thing that I post in 2006, so I’ll wish you all a happy calender change now. This year has been a hell of a lot of fun for me, and this blog has been a big part of that. So thanks to everybody that stopped by, even if it was just to grab the songs. I’ve got a lot of great music to write about in the early days of 2007, so come on back and let me share the good music with you.

#19
Emmy The Great
‘Paper Trails’

Website
Myspace

I’ve really tried to get into the music of Emmy the Great, but I can’t seem to do it. Maybe I’ve been hearing the wrong songs or something, but all of the tracks that I’ve picked up from various blogs haven’t done very much for me. All except this one anyway. It’s quite a feat for an artist I don’t particularly like to get to get a song in my top 20 songs of the year, but ‘Paper Trails’ somehow gets there. I can’t even tell you what it is that I like about it. Possibly the song itself, but it makes so little sense that it’s probably not. It could be her voice, but if it is, why don’t I like her other songs? It’s all very confusing really. Rest assured that this is a fine song though, and certainly worthy of it’s place here.

#18
Sky Larkin
‘Keepsakes’

Website
Myspace

I wrote earlier on in the year that ‘Keepsakes’ was one of my favourite songs of the year, and the fact it’s made this list confirms that very little has changed. It’s not their most complex song, but it’s the one that I’ve enjoyed more than any of the others in the past year. There’s something a little creepy about the whole thing, but it’s mainly just an outlet for Katie’s increasingly powerful voice.

#17
Play Radio Play
‘Jello’

Website
Myspace

The first time that I heard the early parts of ‘Jello’ I genuinely thought that I was listening to The Postal Service. Nearly everything comes across as uncannily similar: the song structure, the random electronic bits and the vocal is pretty much a perfect Gibbard. Of course, this leads to an ineviatble question of why I’m including a song so highly here if it’s just a rip-off of another band. I’m not even sure if I can answer that question entirely though. I just really like the song. It’s simplistic and some of the words are a little awkward, but it’s just incredibly catchy.

#16
The Light Footwork
‘Coastlines Are Landmines’

Website
Myspace

The Light Footwork seemed to arrive entirely out of nowhere with an already perfected sound. Primarily the creative outlet for Jay Underwood and Becca Wilhelm, they combine the musical sounds of Beulah with the songwriting finesse of Stephen Malkmus. If I was putting together an album list for the year, there is no doubt that their debut release, ‘One State Two State’ would feature very highly, if not in the number one position. I don’t think I’ve played any other complete albums as consistantly in the past year. Anyway, ‘Coastlines Are Landmines’ is just one standout song on an incredible album.

#15
The Elected
‘It Was Love’

Website
Myspace

“I’m still not a big fan of ‘Sun, Sun, Sun’, but this song is just about my favourite of any song that The Elected have put out. If there’s one thing Blake Sennett can do well, it’s sounding melancholy while doing his best Elliott Smith impression. An entirely depressing story about two people who stay together because they know no better (”I just put up with you / Kid, I stayed because you wouldn’t leave”). I don’t know if it’s supposed to be positive or not when Blake describes this time as “It was love / Or at least the closest I got”, but it certainly doesn’t seem that way even if it’s supposed to be.” - originally posted June 2.

#14
Pony Up!
‘What’s Free Is Yours’

Website
Myspace

I discovered Pony Up! toward the end of the year, and have since obtained a lot of their material. To be perfectly honestly, a lot of it isn’t all that interesting to me. What is interesting to me though are perfect pop songs, and ‘What’s Free Is Yours’ certainly falls into that category. An upbeat song from a slightly bitter woman who is changing her perception of the past to make the guy she’s broken up with seem like the bad guy (”I don’t believe / you’d be here if you could / But then again / you never said you would / I make up promises you never made”). It’s this perfect capturing of the quirky little things that people do that allow Pony Up! to have some fantastic songs. They just need seeking out amongst all the rest.

#13
Pocketbooks
‘Cross The Line’

Website
Myspace

“‘Cross the Line’ is the first song released from their new batch of recordings, and it’s easily cemented itself in place as one of my favourites of the year so far. Full of lovely imagery (it opens with “I’m asleep on a train on the Zone 2 boundary”) and basically continues as a back and forth conversation between the male and female vocalists. This takes on a nicely self-aware twist when she starts calling him on the honesty of his lyrics (”As a kid I would run through the fields and orchards” / “What about your hayfever though?” / “I’d climb the branches to the top” / “What, with your vertigo?” / “Look, I’m making all this up”). Extra points also have to be awarded for being the first song I’m aware of that actually slots in the term “Oyster card” without being entirely tacky.” - originally posted November 4.

#12
Beeches
‘Make Your Own Luck’

Website
Myspace

Proclaimed as “a fucking excellent song” by at least one attendee gig Beeches played for AFoR a month ago, ‘Make Your Own Luck’ is my favourite song of theirs and one of the best I’ve heard this year. Musically it comes across as a crazy drunk person, jumping from energetic bursts of aggression to slowed down gentle parts and back again. Lyrically, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Essentially the story of man singing to his new step daughter after he met her mother at “the filming of Trisha” before they “married on Kilroy”. Of course, it’s all rather whimsical, but who can resist it when it leaps into high gear for the second time?

#11
Jenny Owen Youngs
‘Fuck Was I’

Website
Myspace

Firmly a part of my “big in 2007″ list is Jenny Owen Youngs, something that was made stronger by a recent signing to Canadian indie label Nettwerk, who will be re-releasing her 2005 album ‘Batten The Hatches’ early next year. Despite initially being kind of indifferent to it, ‘Fuck Was I’ quickly became one of my favourite songs of the year. Pretty much the anthem of any breakup, mournfully looking back and asking “what the fuck was I thinking?” All sung by a wonderful voice with a gentle strings arrangement in the background, sad songs really don’t come much better than this.

#10
Born Ruffians
‘This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life’

Website
Myspace

The world has been decidedly short of slacker anthems since the loss of Pavement, so a song like this from Canada’s Born Ruffians fills in the void perfectly. Two and a half loud, noisy minutes about the things the singer wants from life (a girl, nice car, a meaning to his life) while seemingly accepting that he’s too lazy to do anything about it. This certainly isn’t an epiphany song, more one that proclaims what will never be had. Making the whole thing rather a downer to be honest.

And with that we’re down to the final nine songs that make up best songs of 2006. In my opinion of course. If you read the blog regularly you can probably guess a few of the songs that will make up the top end of the chart, but hopefully there will be a couple of surprises in there too. Be sure to come back tomorrow to find out what they are.

I know I didn’t do a ‘Way Back Whensday’ feature yesterday. I haven’t abandoned it after only two weeks, I just don’t have the time to do both it and one of these countdown posts on the same day. Rest assured it’ll be returning next week when we’re be back to having very little else to write about.

#29
The Young Republic
‘Modern Plays’

Website
Myspace

One of my favourite discoveries of the past year or so was The Young Republic. In fact, they were one of the bands I wanted to babble about that indirectly prompted me into starting this thing, and they become the first band I ever wrote about. Now I don’t know if ‘Modern Plays’ is actually from 2006 as I’m thinking that the EP it’s from was released late in 2005, but it’s one of the songs that I’ve played the most in the last year, so it makes the list. While it was easy in the early days to assign The Young Republic a label of being like Belle & Sebastian, they have grown far more abstract with each release. This song even manages to have a mini jam session in the middle of it, which still all comes together again for one final round of the chorus. About as perfect as indie folk pop can get.

#28
The Indelicates
‘New Art For The People’

Website
Myspace

The Indelicates is largely the project of Simon and Julia Indelicate, which may not be of a great deal of interest. What might be though is that Julia used to be a part of The Pipettes before departing the band sometime last year. This is what led me to The Indelicates, and the most fun part of it all is that they are the far better band. It’s hard to pigeonhole them as each song seems to sound so different to the last, but what we’ve got here are a lot of witty, down to earth lyrics sung by a gruff male voice and a sweet female one. ‘New Art For The People’ is the best example of this, a charming tale about two people who really don’t like each other but stay together in a band because they are successful. With it’s back and forth deliveries and rising final section, it all comes across a little bit like a modern version of ‘Fairytale of New York’.

#27
Sky Larkin
‘Traits and Traitors’

Website
Myspace

Sky Larkin are one of the British “success stories” of 2006, and that will hopefully continue through 2007. Through a bunch of great songs on their Myspace page to gigging the hell out of their native Leeds and London, the band have built up quite a formiddable following. ‘Traits and Traitors’ is one of their darker songs, all moody arrangements and refined vocals. Big things loom for 2007, including a release of their debut single, ‘One of Two’ in January and a small tour with fellow AFoR favourite Los Campesinos! in March.

#26
Voxtrot
‘Mothers, Daughters, Sisters & Wives’

Website
Myspace

What can I say about Voxtrot that hasn’t already been said? They have pretty much dominated indie blogs over the past year and now seem to be crossing over into the mainstream. I still think that the ‘Raised By Wolves’ EP is better than the ‘Mothers, Daughters, Sisters & Wives’ one, but this song still stands out entirely. Trying to find a band that could craft songs in a finer manner than Voxtrot would be an almost impossible task. The words, the textures, the depth. All perfect.

#25
I’m From Barcelona
‘We’re From Barcelona’

Website
Myspace

Coming off like a rather less creepy version of The Polyphonic Spree, the 29 members of Sweden’s I’m From Barcelona (go figure) simply bring pop songs that are full of joy. Incredibly simplistic pop songs at that take. Take introduction song ‘We’re From Barcelona’ for example: it only actually has eight lines that it just repeats a couple of times. But who really cares when it all sounds as gleeful as this? If you’re not singing along to “love is a feeling that we don’t understand / but we’re gonna give it to you” within a couple of plays, you’re dead inside.

#24
Cansei De Ser Sexy
‘Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above’

Website
Myspace

The second song from CSS to make our list, and by far their strongest. It runs the risk of being overrun by the style over substance thing and it’s almost too post-modern for it’s own good, but it sounds too good to dislike. It’s all sultry vocals and overblown synth with a nod and a wink, but that’s what makes CSS so much fun in the first place. It even manages to have a little Death From Above 1979 style breakdown in the middle of it, just to make music geeks like me happy. One of the best videos of the year too.

#23
Human Television
‘I Laughed’

Website
Myspace

I’ve loved Human Television since their ‘All Songs Written By’ EP nearly four years ago, and thought for some time that they were destined to do nothing more than those seven lovely songs. Then out of nowhere a new album appeared, led by ‘I Laughed’, which proved that hadn’t skipped a beat in the gap in between and had maybe picked up a couple of new ones. Nothing is all that different from the EP with it’s gentle guitar and smooth harmonies, but the songwriting has certainly improved, and an addition of a female vocalist to the mix does them no harm at all.

#22
The Besties
‘Prison Song’

Website
Myspace

I’ve been meaning to write about The Besties for the longest time, but never seemed to get around to actually typing anything. This means they are probably only one of only a handful of bands that have made this list without anything more substantial on the site. For those unfamiliar, The Besties are a three-piece twee pop band from Brooklyn. All of their songs tell adorable little stories, and ‘Prison Song’ is at the forefront of these. Harmonies, melodies and nice little lyrics rule the day here.

#21
Los Campesinos!
‘Death To Los Campesinos!’

Website
Myspace

I’ve already prattled on about Cardiff’s Los Campesinos! over and over, so there isn’t very much more that I can add here. They are easily in my list of the top five bands of the year, and all of that is based on a four song EP entitled ‘Hold On Now Youngster’. Four songs of perfect pop bliss full of all of the elements I love, their next twelve months should be fascinating to watch. Only forming early in 2006, they were propelled into the limelight and were garnering label interest before they had even played ten gigs. They signed to Wichita (home of Bloc Party) at the end of the year, and a double a-side debut single (’We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives’ / ‘Don’t Make Me Do The Math(s)’) is to follow in the new year.

#20
Shake My Hand
‘Invincible’

Website
Myspace

Another band to come out of the seemingly unstoppable Cardiff music scene is Shake My Hand. I actually wrote about these guys earlier on in the year, but they were called Yossarian back then. I’m not entirely sure on the reason for the name change, but it doesn’t matter as they still sound just as good. Wonderfully simple songs about mundane things (”Fancy a cup of tea? / Fuck, we’ve got no milk / Ben, d’you fancy going down the shop?”) all delivered in the kind of bored vocal style that makes The Rakes so enjoyable.

Okay, so I realise that 49 songs is a pretty random number. I don’t entirely know why I chose it. It’s just that 50 seemed rather generic to me. I also know that the ordering on a lot of these songs is slightly absurd. Isn’t #36 really better than #37? I honestly couldn’t tell you as my opinion probably changes from day to day. So take the numbering with a pinch of salt. It’s a rough guide, nothing more. I should also point out that I limited any band to having no more than two songs each in the 49. So much as I would have loved to filled this with Voxtrot, Young Republic or Light Footwork songs, I had to use a little self restraint. So now you know some of my methodology, enjoy the next ten songs.

#39
The Mountain Goats
‘Woke Up New’

Website
Myspace

“This isn’t the John Darnielle that we heard on the last two records. The song tells the story of getting used to being alone after the big breakup and uses wonderfully real examples of getting used to being alone (”the first time I made coffee for just myself, I made too much of it”). It all essentially comes down to a refrain of “oh, what will I do without you?”. It isn’t an angry question though, just accepting that this is how things are now.” - originally posted June 17.

#38
Cansei De Ser Sexy
‘This Month, Day 10′

Website
Myspace

Probably the most cheerful sounding break-up song of the past year. CSS seem to be about an image just as much as the music, and when it sounds/looks this good, who really cares? There’s nothing overly complex in the arrangements here, just a lot of synth and some rather bored sounding vocals. All of which makes it a hell of a lot of funny, even when the lead singer is belting out lines like “if someday we get to meet again / In a car crash, plane wreck or terrorist attack / Or maybe next thursday night / Don’t bother saying hi”.

#37
National Heroes
‘Riot Vans / CS Cans’

Website
Myspace

A glorious assault on the “chav” culture that seems to have almost consumed the UK. I only discovered National Heroes toward the end of the year and don’t know a great deal about them, but they have obviously been listening to a lot of the great British bands. A storming snapshot of modern Britain, covering such lovely topics as teen pregnancy (”Teenage drugs and pregnant mums / Birth control is non-existant”) to the wonderful street racers you encounter on the roads each day (”Boy racers cruising in their financed 205s / Keep touching 90 down the A1205″) all leading to the simple refrain that it’s just “a sign of the times”. Assuming they get noticed, they could be the next big thing for British music in 2007.

#36
Belle & Sebastian
‘Sukie In The Graveyard’

Website
Myspace

Even though most seem to love it, ‘The Life Pursuit’ really doesn’t do very much for me. It’s a reasonable enough album with some solid singles, but on the whole it leaves me pretty cold. I guess I fall into the simplistic early Belle & Sebastian camp rather than the things they come up with now. Oh well, it still has those solid singles, and ‘Sukie In The Graveyard’ is one of them. One of the things I really don’t like about new Belle & Sebastian is how Murdoch constantly plays around with different styles of delivery. Ironically, ‘Sukie’ is one of the songs where he does this, pitching the song with a heavily accented, rapid delivery, and yet it works for it perfectly. The song sounds cheerful enough until you actually listen the words, where it becomes a rather dark tale of a girl kicked out of her house who ends up posing nude to make ends meet. Not that she seems to care of course. Oh Belle & Sebastian, and your wonderful shades of grey.

#35
Royal Treatment Plant
‘You Don’t Need Me’

Website
Myspace

Royal Treatment Plant are a band that I went from hating to really liking within the course of a month. I really disliked them when I saw them live in September, but I got their CD in the mail a few days later and I really liked it. I’m not sure what didn’t click the first time around, but it was this song that largely won me over. It’s full of driving guitars and some fantastic passive-agressive vocals sung with an urgency that doesn’t often seem to crop up from female fronted British bands.

#34
Play Radio Play
‘Juice Box, Paper Hat and a Line of Pixie Stix’

Website
Myspace

If there’s one thing this kid needs, it’s an editor. Which may sound like a harsh way to open, but it’s rather true. Play Radio Play is a 17 year old from Texas who makes simple electronic songs on his computer. A lot of them are pretty awful. But some of the good ones are really good. ‘Juice Box’ is one of them. It’s all pretty whimsical, about escaping from life to a fantasy world where you’re in control, but the delivery and arrangement prove that there is talent here to make Postal Service like electro-pop perfection. He’s just been signed to Island, so hopefully with a little guidance he’ll be able to reign in some of the eccentric elements of his music and come up with something stunning.

#33
Sparrow House
‘When I Am Gone’

Website
Myspace

Sparrow House is the solo project of Jared Van Fleet, who is a member of the fantastic Voxtrot. The sound of Sparrow House is nothing like that of Voxtrot though. ‘When I Am Gone’ is from his debut EP, ‘Falls’, and is a stunning folk effort that comes across as a latter day Iron & Wine. A gentle, twanging guitar eases up through the song, while Van Fleet sings his heartbreaking lament over the top. It’s almost enough to wonder exactly what we’d be hearing from this guy if he wasn’t a member of Voxtrot. Almost.

#32
Absentee
‘Something To Bang’

Website
Myspace

“This is a band that describes their sound as “Leonard Cohen singing from the trouser backed up with a mix of incompetence and occasional surprise”. So I started to listen to ‘Something To Bang’. It all started normally enough, all garage band guitars and bassline, and then, forty five seconds in, the vocal kicks in. That’s the point where I discovered they really weren’t kidding with the Leonard Cohen thing. Lead singer Dan does have a voice that evokes Cohen, and more importantly, a voice that isn’t usually found in indie rock. Indie rock is often made up of those who can’t really sing but really want to rock out, and the music will disguise that well. The people with the stronger voices seem to go on and do other things. This isn’t exactly a perfect rule, but it fits quite a lot of the time. I guess my point here is that there’s a voice here that you don’t commonly hear. The closest contemporary comparison I can think of is David Berman, and that’s certainly not a bad thing. As the song progresses, more musical flourishes enter. There are keyboards in here, sneaky little riffs and a bunch of other fun stuff. All of this results in an indie-country-rock type sound that you don’t often hear coming from bands on this side of the Atlantic.” - originally posted June 24.

#31
The Bright Lights
‘Closed on Monday’

Website
Myspace

I discovered The Bright Lights entirely by accident when they headlined a Beeches gig that I’d been invited too. Unfortunately I had to leave before their set was over, but a quick rummage around the internet later showed they had a hell of a lot of talent. The songs aren’t all that bold, but by god they are catchy, with the kind of urgent vocal delivery that makes them come to an end seemingly far too quickly. ‘Closed on Monday’ is by far their best effort, a fantastic piece of guitar pop. They are due to release a single (their first I think) in March, so hopefully 2007 will be the year that things start happen for them.

#30
Oh No! Oh My!
‘I Have No Sister’

Website
Myspace

Handclaps! Electronica! Non-sensical lyrics! What’s not to love about Oh No! Oh My!? Their whole album is full of delightful little gems but it’s ‘I Have No Sister’ that stands out the most to me. A gleeful song about feeling better by being with someone, even if it means suggesting that they both “ride bikes into the sea”. The whole thing is darker lyrically than it sounds musically, and things like “if I die then at least you’ll die too” really should be rather morbid, but somehow it manages to seem forever gleeful.

You should know how it works by now. Ten more tomorrow, ten more Friday and the final nine on Saturday.

Here we are at my first end of year listings as a blogger. It’s all very exciting and all, and I’d like to think I’m doing things a little differently. There will be absolutely no album list anywhere on this blog. This is because I don’t tend to listen to albums anymore. Yes, I know this makes me some kind of charlatan, but I may as well be honest about it. I’m all about the quick burst of the song these days. As such, over the next five days, we’ll be running down my favourite 49 songs of 2006. Now, I know this list isn’t perfect. There’s probably a bunch of songs from 2005 in here too, but if I only discovered them for whatever reason in 2006, they made the list anyway. Seeing as this is a lot of songs to write about, I’m only going to cover some of them. On others I will just use the original comments I posted earlier on in the year. Not that it really matters, as it’s the mp3s that people want, not my rambling comments. Anyway, I now present Another Form of Relief’s first annual Top 49 Songs of the year:

#49
The Victorian English Gentleman’s Club
‘My Son Spells Backwards’

Website
Myspace

“Cumbersome name aside, this three-piece from Cardiff are putting out hyperactive music that falls somewhere in between new wave, punk and electro pop. Their music jumps all over the place, and yet it’s still all alarmingly melodic and catchy, the kind of thing that wouldn’t be out of place on a number of Pixies albums. ‘My Son Spells Backwards’ is so catchy and cheerful you probably won’t catch on at first that it’s all about a special needs kid. Clocking in at under two minutes, it’s an incredibly efficient little ditty, not wasting even a second of the song. It jangles, it rocks, and it features that favourite of mine, duelling vocals. This was included as a b-side on their last single, given an indication of how solid their material already is if this can be spared as a secondary song.” - originally posted April 10.

#48
Odeon Beatclub
‘Take It Off’

Website
Myspace

Odeon Beatclub are another band to come off of the production line for great music that is Glasgow. Having spent time supporting the likes of Snow Patrol and Babyshambles, they are building quite a cult following in their native land, and if there’s any justice in this world, that will spread south of the border too. There’s nothing all that new to be heard here, but for solid, catchy songs, you don’t need to look any further than ‘Take It Off’, their single from earlier this year.

#47
The Foundry Field Recordings
‘Buried Beneath The Winter Frames’

Website
Myspace

Isn’t it perfect that in the same year as Grandaddy decide to call it a day, their natural successor seems to appear out of nowhere? Of course, that is a little unfair on The Foundry Field Recordings, but there is certainly a hell of a lot of Grandaddy in their sound. Their album was full of the kind of randomness that made that band a joy, and while ‘Buried Beneath The Winter Frames’ may tone down the eccentricities, it’s probably their most catchy and accessible song.

#46
Pants Yell!
‘Your Feelings Don’t Show’

Website
Myspace

I used the term “dorky charm” when I first wrote about Pants Yell!, and that term seems to sum the band up far more concisely than anything I’d be able to write in this paragraph. A delightfully simple tale about running into an ex-girlfriend and then wondering in the back of your mind whether the meeting was an accident or not, but being far too spineless to actually ask if that was the case. Pants Yell! have an entirely catalogue of songs like this, and singling one out for this list was pretty hard, but ‘Your Feelings Don’t Show’ just about manages to edge the others out.

#45
Beeches
‘Sin Nombre’

Website
Myspace

I discovered Beeches earlier on in the year when they sent me some of their music, but it only really clicked with me how great they are once I saw them live a little while later. These guys know how to put on a hell of a show, giving their songs even more life than they already have on the recorded versions. I even had the honour of having them play at Another Form of Relief’s first promoted gig in December, where they put on a fantastic set, even if not many people were there to watch. Like a lot of great songs, ‘Sin Nombre’ didn’t really grab me immediately, and it was only after several listens to their CD that it won me over. I still couldn’t really tell you what it’s about, but it certainly sounds good.

#44
Battle
‘Tendency’

Website
Myspace

“We may as well get the lame comparisons out of the way now, so yes, Battle do sound rather like Bloc Party, particularly on ‘Tendency’. Please don’t let that put you off though, as it sounds like one of those rare good Bloc Party songs. The guitars jerk all over the place, the bass drives and the drumming keeps it all in line. All this while Jason Bavanandan belts out words in such a manner that it sounds like it could actually be physically painful for him to do so. This adds to the urgency of the song though. As for the song itself, it’s a suitably downbeat tale about how crappy life can be at times. “I know I dance like a drunken arse / Every weekend, it’s my only vice / Let me drink myself to death / To forget about the rent” asks Bavanandan, sounding as if it’s what he really wants to do. Ultimately though it’s a love story about loving a girl, but knowing that it’s probably not going to work out as it only really goes one way. I like the whole realist point of view this gives the song, rather than the usual optimism or complete pessimism that usually appears in songs of this nature.” - originally posted June 27.

#43
Nathan Asher & The Infantry
‘Turn Up The Faders’

Website
Myspace

“‘Turn Up The Faders’ is hands down one of the best songs that I have heard this year. It also confirmed exactly what the comparisons had promised: somehow this young, unsigned band had a sound that evokes both Bright Eyes and Springsteen. Asher’s vocals are very similiar to Oberst’s, partly shaking yet also full of power. He drives through the song with such urgency that you’d think that lives depended on it. This is supported ably by some excellent instrumentation, including a fantastic piano breakdown toward the end of the song that could have come straight off of ‘Born To Run’.” - originally posted May 19.

#42
The Amateurs
‘Things You Only Know If You Don’t Drive’

Website
Myspace

Delightful twee pop from Edinburgh that would be far too easy to compare to Belle & Sebastian. With male-female vocals and a truckload of cute little references, it’s just a joy to see British bands actually trying this kind of thing. The song itself is exactly what it says in the title: all about how buses come in groups and what shoes to wear in the rain. It runs out of steam a little bit before the end, but it’s still so wonderfully catchy that it’s impossible to ignore.

#41
The Young Knives
‘She’s Attracted To’

Website
Myspace

The Young Knives seem to get a lot of flack, but I think they are one of the best of the current crop of “popular” British bands. Of course, me being the unaware person that I am was entirely oblivious to them until I was dragged to see them at a festival in August. They won me over very quickly though, putting on a great high energy performance, which included this song. It’s probably not their most developed song, but it’s the one that I enjoy the most. A simple tale about liking a girl but hating her parents, it’s just a hell of a lot of fun.

#40
Math & Physics Club
‘Darling, Please Come Home’

Website
Myspace

“‘Darling, Please Come Home’ builds on the promise of last year’s two EPs, bringing us a simple tale of a lost love. Nothing here will sound all that different if you’re already familiar with twee pop, but the point here is that MAPC are as good as, if not better, than any other band working in the genre at the moment. It’s percussion is steady, the guitar work gentle and Charles’ vocal manages to somehow be incredibly restrained and while still emotive. If this is an indication of the rest of the album, we could be looking at one of the best of the year.” - originally posted October 5.

Feel free to join me again in the coming days as we’ll be counting down ten songs each day with the final nine being revealed on December 30.

I was going to lay this thing to a well deserved rest after the Pogues song, but I’ve found a few more novelties over the past month that I want to share, and I don’t really feel like sitting on them for another year. I swear this will be the final post that contains any festive music this side of next December though. Between this place and all of the other blogs going into festive overload, if you’re anything like me, you’re probably getting a little sick of all of the Christmas songs by now. I only really want to give these three a mention because they are all connected to songs featured earlier on in our advent.

MP3 Snow Patrol - Just Like Christmas (expired)
This will be the third version of ‘Just Like Christmas’ that I’ve posted on this thing, following the original by Low on day 3 and a cover by Aberdeen City on day 18. This cover by Snow Patrol is a pretty direct, if a tad stripped down, version of the original song. Which is fine as it’s the kind of thing that Snow Patrol pull off brilliantly. There’s actually a lot of talent in that band, and Lightbody’s voice is pretty damn impressive. It’s a shame they feel the need to go down the boring as hell big anthem kind of route with their albums.

MP3 Save Ferris - Christmas Wrapping (expired)
I don’t know much about Save Ferris and everything I’ve read about them in the last hour or so has pretty much laid into them for one reason or another. I have no idea if that’s justified or not, but this ‘cover’ of The Waitresses’ song that I posted yesterday is pretty damn good. I use the term ‘cover’ as while it imitates the original almost perfectly musically and vocally, the song has been completely remade with entirely different words, chorus and the odd knowing line aside. The whole thing has been turned into a tale of a Jew trying to cope with how overbearing Christmas is and wanting to hibernate in the two months between November and January. It’s not perfect and some of the lines are a little clunky, but it’s a pretty amusing diversion.

MP3 Stars - Fairytale of New York (expired)
I’m a big fan of Stars, and that hasn’t wained very much in the year since I’ve found them. Sure, there’s nothing groundbreakingly original about what they do, but they make some darn catchy pop songs. Anyway, this cover was the b-side to the UK single release of ‘Your Ex-Lover Is Dead’, which handily was released around Christmas last year. Whenever I hear a different versions of this song, they always takes a hell of lot of getting used to, and usually I won’t warm to them at all. This one was much the same, but I’ve grown to rather like it in the past year. It’s still not a patch on The Pogues version, and it’s lacking the energy that it really needs, but it’s still rather good.

So yes, no more Christmas songs for at least another 340 days. Which is probably for the best as the backlog of bands I want to rave about has grown pretty big over the past month. I’ve still got a few time of year approrpriate posts coming up though. All being well, December 26 through December 30 should see me counting down my favourite 49 songs of the year. Why 49? I don’t know either. Then on December 31 we’ll have a nice little selection of new year related songs, followed by a return to normality. Woo.

So we reached the end of our advent calender, and was there any other song that would be appropriate to wrap it all up? The only problem though is that I’m not entirely sure how to write about it, so I’ll keep this brief. I also imagine that pretty much everyone reading this will be familiar with it, and if you’re not, just skip my bullshit and head straight to the download. Nearly everything I read about it goes on about how it’s so great because it’s exactly the opposite of what a mainstream Christmas song is. The only problem in that is that it’s now just as mainstream as the “classics” it rebels against. This of course is no bad thing, but surely that in itself turns it into one of the Christmas staples. It’s also probably the only Christmas song where the use of “slut” and “faggot” are seen as acceptable.

MP3 The Pogues - Fairytale of New York (expired)

So as we come to the end of our little advent calender, we’re going to close things up with a couple of more mainstream festive songs, just so we don’t get out on an indie dreary low. As I said at the start of this thing, I’m going to finish this up tomorrow with the best (read: my favourite) festive song, although it shouldn’t be hard to figure out what it is, particularly as a ton of other blogs have already posted it.

Today though we have a seasonal offering from The Waitresses. I couldn’t tell you very much about The Waitresses besides what I just skimmed off AllMusic before writing this thing up. Even though they only existed for two years between 1981 and 1983, they seem to be held in rather high regard. I only have this song to go on unfortunately, and attempts to hear some more have been fruitless. As such, if anyone would like to slip a song or two of theirs (particularly ‘I Know What Boys Like’) into my inbox, it would be greatly appreciated.

I used to really hate this song. Not because I had any good reason to or anything. Rather that it was a Christmas playlist staple of Invicta FM, my local bland as hell radio station that I heard far too much of as a kid. I mean seriously, go look at their playlist if you don’t believe me. Then imagine something far worse as the playlist these days is a hell of a lot better than the shit they used to play back in the 90s.

Where was I? Oh yes, this song. I used to hate it pretty much solely because they played it regularly, and to me, everything on that station had to be awful. It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve started to appreciate it. Setting aside the awful pun of a title, it’s a far better song than it appears to be on the outside. While initially seeming like another miserable Christmas song about a woman who is cutting herself from everyone on Christmas Day, it actually turns into something rather more cheerful. The whole thing is nicely self aware, and the little asides and delivery push it firmly above the usual kind of festive drivel.

Let’s just ignore the fact it was covered by The Spice Girls.

MP3 The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping (expired)

Yes, I’m posting day 22 on December 23, but unlike the previous times where I was late with these, this time I have a good reason. The hosting where the mp3s are parked went kaput last night, meaning I couldn’t put any new songs up onto it, and rather than wait for it to come back up, I went to bed instead. Which once again means that you get a double dosing of Christmas joy (or melancholy) today.

Most people probably only know Harvey Danger from their song ‘Flagpole Sitta’, which was something of a modest indie hit several years ago. Rather than go down the “one hit wonder” route that would have been so easy for them, the band have instead carved out a nice little disography in the time since. Nothing spectacular, but nothing bad either. They gained a little attention last year when they released their new album ‘Little By Little’ onto the internet in mp3 form for free. This turned out to be a cunning way to get the word out about their music, and subsequent deals with KillRockStars and Barsuk Records have followed.

The song here is particularly relevant to me as I do have to work on Christmas myself. Well, I don’t have to, but I choose to as I don’t mind doing it and it brings in a nice bit of extra money. That isn’t the view that the narrator of the song takes though. He seems quite miserable in the fact that while everywhere else is closed, his place of employment (a cinema) is open. Now I could go off on a whole thing about how weird it is for cinemas to be open on Christmas Day, but that’s an entirely different post.

MP3 Harvey Danger - Sometimes You Have To Work On Christmas (expired)

So this may be the least festive Christmas song I actually post on this thing. I’m a casual Flaming Lips listener: a few singles and I’m good. I don’t think I’ve ever been able to listen to an entire album in one sitting. Like a lot of bands I don’t usually like though, I tend to appreciate their Christmas offerings. Except this song is all about animals and possibly some kind of psychological sociology rather than Christmas. That said, it’s called ‘Christmas At The Zoo’ and the events of the song take place on Christmas Eve, so I’m going to go with it. There’s not a great deal more I can really say about the song, other than an obligatory comment about how the band were probably high when they came up with it, but that would just be cheap.

MP3 The Flaming Lips - Christmas At The Zoo (expired)